Blogroll

Meta

Subscribe

“NICE”: Orwellian acronym of Brit plan to ration pain treatment

Posted by danishova on August 3, 2009

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

How quaint and outmoded Dylan Thomas sounds in this wondrous Brave New World of government controlled “healthcare”, moderated by bureaucratic “Comparative Effectiveness Research” councils. According to Ezekiel Emanuel, creepy brother of Rahm Emanuel, and one of Obama’s most trusted advisers, the Hippocratic Oath is passe’ as it encourages the “overuse of medical care” and thus must be reined in. Nope, no longer are we encouraged to fight for life, but instead we are counseled to be docile and compliant citizens who, having already had our fair share of life and resources, must go gentle into that good night. The arguments in favor of this approach range from citing “communitarianism” and “redistributive justice” to the Neo-Malthusian desire of Obama’s creepy Science Czar to save an “overpopulated planet” from human “polluters” via abortion, sterilization, and euthanasia.

To illustrate the pain of this clinical bureaucratic approach, we have this story from across the pond, via the Telegraph U.K. NICE is an acronym for National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence.

The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.

Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.

The NHS currently issues more than 60,000 treatments of steroid injections every year. NICE said in its guidance it wants to cut this to just 3,000 treatments a year, a move which would save the NHS £33 million.

That’s the “NICE” British way, but things are proceeding ominously in the U.S. as well. In a new twist to the concept of “alternative medicine”, Hot Air alerts us to Oregonian patients who are told that it is too costly to keep them alive with chemotherapy pills like Tarceva, so they are handed a death sentence by bureaucrats who kindly prescribe “comfort care” centers where they can dutifully die – thanks to Oregon’s legally assisted suicide. They should not rage against the dying of the light, they’ve had their turn to live; it’s time to act altruistically and sacrifice space on the planet and economic resources for social justice and the greater good!

Inspired by NICE, I have devised some seductive acronyms that Obama’s hirelings can use to sell their healthcare rationing programs for the elderly (and babies and children with icky abnormalities whom bioethicists determine are not worthy of medical care):

PIP – Pain is Patriotic.

CARESS – Council for Aging Retirees Early Suicide Services.

LOVE – Let Old Vultures Expire.

CARE – Cease Age-Related Expenditures.

HUGS – Halt Unfair Gerontology Spending.

GREAT – Greedy Retirees Euthanasia Advocacy Trust.

KISS – Kill Ill Seniors Swiftly

HUMANE – Halt Unfair Meds for Aging Nuisances Early.

BLISS – Bureau to Lobby for Infanticide in a Secular Society

Other suggestions are welcome. It takes a village, after all.

Update:
Perfect! The reliably brilliant People’s Cube has devised a Cash for Clunkers – Obamacare edition, where you can “trade in your grandparents for cash prizes and free healthcare entitlements”. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Dear Leader makes this sales pitch:

“From my meetings with community activists and focus groups I have learned one thing: once you’re past seventy, you have outlived your usefulness. Progress requires sacrifice. Some don’t buy a large flat-screen TV, some don’t go on vacation, and some don’t go on living. And since humans are nothing more than a random collection of chemical elements that can also be found in a flat-screen TV, human sacrifice is no different than material sacrifice. Do it for the children!”

We all know that the British education system is bad but is it really possible that they are so illiterate (or assume everyone else is so illiterate) that they could really name a science organization that advises the government N.I.C.E and no one said “Uh, you know guys, maybe this ain’t such a good idea after all…”. Does anyone read C.S. Lewis anymore? Anyone? Anyone?

According to some this isn’t a very nice little N.I.C.E. either.

(P.S. Danishova, The N.I.C.E was a government funded science organization in C.S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength. It was the villain of the piece because of the social engineering experiments it was implementing.)

danishovasaid

jmcaulsaid

C.S. Lewis That Hideous Strength is my all time favorite book of fiction. I first read it over 20 years ago and immediately recognized the parallels with (then) 20th century statism. I recently re-read it and came across NICE again. At the time Lewis wrote it (1945) he chose the name NICE to be purely satirical and somewhat even campy given the true purpose of the nefarious organization in his book. It was a rhetorical way of illustrating how central planners like to give harmless and even desirable sounding labels to their unsavory plans in order to subdue public opposition. I am sure he envisioned an eventual attempt at establishing what GB now knows as N.I.C.E. That they would be so lumpen and clumsy to use such a hyperbolic acronym; one HE, one of their most famous writers introduced so many decades earlier, would have astounded even him at the sheer arrogance and lack of awareness such an action reveals on the part of those ‘in charge’ in today’s Great Britain.
Rebekah, my reaction to learning of the real agency N.I.C.E. was the same as yours! “How stupid are the British central planners or how stupid do they think the people are – this is one of their most famous and widely read writers!” I was absolutely flabbergasted.